Russian attack | FT: Russia surpassed the United States in gas deliveries to European countries

Russia delivered more natural gas to European countries during May than the United States, for the first time in almost two years. About that news British newspaper Financial Times (FT) on Sunday.

So this is despite the fact that EU countries have tried to wean themselves off Russian gas after Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022.

After Norway, the United States had been the largest gas supplier to European countries since September 2022. In May, however, 15 percent of Europe’s gas came from Russia and only 14 percent from the United States.

FT points out that the turn is unlikely to be permanent. It was partially explained by temporary factors, the most important of which were the outage at the liquefied natural gas (lng) export station in the United States and the temporary increase in Russian gas supplies due to pipeline maintenance scheduled for June.

Since the beginning of last year, the United States has been responsible for an average of about 20 percent of Europe’s gas imports.

Mitigating despite the ramifications, May’s outburst illustrates how difficult it is for European countries to get rid of their dependence on Russian gas.

FT’s news is based on figures from ICIS, a consulting company that follows the raw materials market. In its statistics, EU countries (except Malta and Cyprus) as well as Great Britain, Switzerland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia are counted as Europe.

“It’s amazing to see the market share of Russian gas and LNG growing in Europe after everything we’ve witnessed, given all the efforts to reduce dependence and risk in energy supplies,” ICIS lead analyst Tom Marzec-Manser told the FT.